SPA-4, a 4-credit clinical elective, is designed to provide fourth year medical students an opportunity to take a deeper dive into an advocacy area of their interest. Students will spend roughly half of this 4-week rotation in a clinical setting (previous sites include Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, BMC’s GROW Clinic, and BMC’s Project RESPECT Clinic), while the other half will be spent executing an advocacy-oriented research or quality improvement project.
Students are responsible for identifying an advocacy project and a mentor that is a subject expert in the student’s area of interest. Ideally, students will have completed the other components of the advocacy training curriculum, although exceptions can be made to those who have demonstrated an interest in advocacy in other ways throughout their medical education. For more information about this clinical elective (603.1: Patient Advocacy and Community-Based Resources in Clinical Medicine), email buatp@bu.edu.
